1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a notification equipment, a terminal equipment, a communication system, and a communication method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Services for broadcasting or multicasting multimedia contents to multiple mobile stations (Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service, hereafter referred to as ‘MBMS’) have been conventionally carried out (see 3GPP TSG-RAN, “TS25.346 V6.0.0 Introduction of Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) in Radio Access Network (RAN)”, March 2004.)
A mobile station first receives an instruction channel for transmitting instruction data instructing to receive a control channel for transmitting control data, which is necessary for receiving a data channel for transmitting multimedia contents. The mobile station confirms the instruction data on the instruction channel when it is interested in the MBMS and then receives the necessary control channel. The mobile station then receives the data channel using the control data obtained from the control channel. The same control data is repeatedly transmitted on the control channel.
However, with the conventional method, the mobile station is not able to discern whether the control data transmitted on the control channel is data first transmitted or data repeatedly transmitted. Therefore, the mobile station may receive the control data a number of times. A terminal equipment such as the mobile station is not capable of properly receiving only necessary transmission data such as control data in this manner. As a result, this has led to faster draining of a battery in the terminal equipment and increase in control load of the terminal equipment due to reception of useless transmission data.